


Play The Hero One More Time For Me

by Know_Your_Paradoxes



Category: Presentable Liberty
Genre: Anger, Angst, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Crush, Awkward Kissing, Awkwardness, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Childhood Sweethearts, Crushes, Crying, Death, Depressing, Depression, Dr. Money is a Dick, Drama & Romance, Drinking, Drinking & Talking, Drunken Kissing, Drunkenness, Everything Hurts, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Falling In Love, Feels, First Crush, First Love, Flashbacks, Friendship/Love, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, I Made Myself Cry, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Insanity, Kissing, Let's Dub Project Version, Loss, Love, M/M, Madness, Memories, Mental Anguish, Mental Health Issues, Murder, No Romance, POV First Person, Platonic Kissing, Platonic Life Partners, Platonic Romance, Platonic Soulmates, Possibly Unrequited Love, Present Tense, Recovered Memories, Sad, Sad Ending, Sad and Beautiful, Secret Crush, Sloppy Makeouts, Solitary Confinement, Swearing, Teen Crush, Teenagers, The Author Regrets Everything, The Bug is Named Gregor Samson, The Player Character is Male, The Player Character is Named Randall, There is a lot of sads, This Hurts Not Gonna Lie, Tragic Romance, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, corpse kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-10 19:55:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5598802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Know_Your_Paradoxes/pseuds/Know_Your_Paradoxes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sal and I used to play pretend where he would always save me from danger. And suddenly, I needed him to play the hero one more time for me."</p>
<p>Based on the Let's Dub series for the game, using their fanon name for the inmate and also the name for the bug.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Play The Hero One More Time For Me

If you're reading this, then that means that I, Randall Wilson, am dead.

So, first off, you're probably asking why I did it. Why I, the only healthy person left, besides Dr. Money himself (that smug bastard), decided to kill myself. Well, I can give it to you in multiple facets.

First, Charlotte, one of my only friends throughout all the terrible shit I went through, couldn't wait long enough for me to get to her. She killed herself before I could get to her shop and tell her that I was alright. I was so devastated when I got her letter covered in blood that I couldn't think or really function for a while afterwards. The only thing that really kept me going was the hope that Salvadore would come and save me so that we could run away from this place together.

Second, Mr. Smiley is also dead. He sold all of his organs to Dr. Money. I don't necessarily blame him, though. He'd lost everything he ever knew and loved. His two daughters had been kidnapped and killed. There was nothing left for him anymore. I'm not entirely sure if I kept living just because he told me to or not.

Third, it wasn't like Gregor Samson was the best of company. I mean, for God's sake, he was a fucking spider. While, yes, he was the only thing that made me feel like I wasn't completely alone, he wasn't exactly the most responsive. Hell, he hid underneath my bed most of the time, while I just got to stand there and play shitty games on my Portable Entertainment Product. (Although, that wasn't necessarily completely terrible. Triangle Wars was actually kind of fun, and I did get a medal from beating Fear of Fire.)

Fourth, Dr. Money. Oh, God, where to even begin with Dr. Money. He ruined everything. He's the reason behind all of this. He is the reason that everyone in town is dead. He is the reason that Mr. Smiley's daughters were kidnapped and killed. He is the reason that Mr. Smiley felt the need to sell all of his organs. He is the reason that I was locked up all that time. He is the reason that Charlotte killed herself, because she couldn't wait for me for just a little while longer. He is the reason that Sal was "electrocuted." I don't believe for a goddamn second that Sal actually was electrocuted. He wouldn't have been dumb enough to have gotten himself electrocuted on something. If he would've thought that the generator looked dangerous, he would've come up and broken me out instead. Sal is a smart guy, he would've known what to do. I know him better than anyone else on the face of this earth, and I know that he would never risk that sort of thing. He valued his life more than anything else, and he would never do something dumb like that on purpose.

And, fifth, and most important of all, Salvadore is dead.

Why is that the most important thing to me, you might be asking yourself? Well, I can tell you.

I loved him. I loved him more than anything I've ever loved. He was the only person that kept me going. He made me feel better even though for most of my confinement, we were a thousand miles apart. Since we were little kids, I've been in love with him. I had never quite been able to bring myself to confess, and I was planning on trying to once he broke me out.

Because staying in that cell made me realize that if there's anything I should be doing, it should be living.

Which is admittedly harsher in hindsight, seeing as I'm writing this letter to say goodbye.

I had always admired him for being the adventurous kid at heart I always knew. Whenever we were kids, I remembered always being his travel companion, and I had loved every single second of it. It felt like it was just me and him against the world. Those were the days. I think they might have been the best days of my entire life. Either I was his trusty companion, or I was the damsel in distress.

Sal and I used to play pretend where he would always save me from danger. And suddenly, I needed him to play the hero one more time for me.

But he never showed. He opened the door, but at the cost of his life. He was apparently "electrocuted" by the generator. I don't believe that at all. Dr. Money is full of lies, and his explanation for Sal's death is just another one of them. God knows he has enough of those lying around.

So, instead of going any further into the reasons why I'm going to end my life, I'm going to relive the moments that made my life the way it was.

I remember the day I met Sal. We were really little. We were both 6 years old, with him turning 6 before me. I had just moved to a new place with my parents, and it was my first day at school. I had been assigned a companion to show me around the school, but she ended up getting sick and not going to school that day. Which is why I ended up being stuck with Sal. He had been the only one to gleefully volunteer to show me around.

We ended up getting lost about 3 minutes into the tour.

But, while we were lost for a while, that gave us a chance to actually talk. We had a lot in common, but he was much more brave than I was at that age. We had decided that we were going to try and find our own way back to our classroom, and make it an adventure.

I remembered him humming the theme song from Indiana Jones as we went along, and I rolled right along with it. Eventually, that was how we ended up getting saved by one of the teachers. We were sent to the principal for disrupting classes, but we didn't get in trouble (or at least, I didn't--that was how I found out that this was how Sal usually was, just in general). I was set on becoming his best friend after that.

And we did become best friends. We were super close--practically inseparable.

Being 10 was rough for me, because that was when I began to realize that I had a crush on Sal. I wasn't sure if it was right or not, because I had never really been taught what to do in the case of being in love with a boy. I had always been taught how to act whenever you had a crush on a girl, but never in the situation of having one for your male best friend.

It ate at me. I couldn't stand not knowing what to do. I had always been the type of person that was calm, cool, and collected in any situation. But being in love with Sal was the worst thing I could've ever dealt with at that age. I couldn't believe that I was going through something like that at such a young age.

Sal had never known. Every day, I wanted to tell him so badly. As the years kept passing by, it kept getting stronger and stronger, until finally I could no longer deny that I was completely head over heels. And yet he still never knew because I never figured out how to tell him.

It came to a head when I was thirteen. By that time, I had stopped trying to convince myself that I wasn't gay. It felt really odd to say it to myself back then, and it felt even more odd to tell anyone else. I had told my parents almost immediately, and they had accepted me so willingly. (I'm not going to say that they were the greatest parents ever, but they were definitely not bad parents. I loved them all the same.)

So when I worked up the courage to finally at least tell Sal that I was gay, I was scared out of my mind. It felt like I was introducing myself to him all over again, like I was starting over. What would he think of me? Would he stop being my friend because of it? It already felt weird to have to be admitting it, but I knew that it was for the best to tell him. After all, friends should never have to hide themselves from one another, right?

My heart was beating out of my chest. I could barely manage to think. I remembered that I had closed my eyes as I said it, and I just told him bluntly in the middle of a conversation. "Sal, I think I'm gay," I had yelled out.

He stopped dead in his tracks for a while, just blinking at me for the longest time. My palms were clammy. I felt like I was going to explode just waiting to hear him respond. Then he grabbed my hand, and gave me a smile. Finally, he said, "What does that have to do with anything?"

I felt like I could finally breathe again. His approval meant everything to me. "So, you don't mind?" I asked him.

"Why should I? That has nothing to do with us being friends. It doesn't change anything. You're still the same you that you were before you told me you liked guys. Trust me, R, it's not a big deal."

"Oh, thank GOD. I was so worried. You're my best friend, and I didn't want to lose you."

Sal smirked. "I wouldn't ever stop being your best friend for anything in the world. Hell, you could probably kill a couple of guys and I wouldn't care. We're best friends, and we always will be."

I felt so much more confident in myself after telling him. I was confident enough to tell other people, and confident enough to look in the mirror and be proud of who I saw each morning. It was a great time in my life. I was so happy.

During that time, Sal was starting to figure out who he was too. Which meant, of course, that there would be at least one awkward moment between us that neither of us wanted to participate in, but neither of us would ever quite forget.

When I was 15 and he had just barely turned 16, Sal had started to get invited to the parties that the Seniors threw. Since he was good-looking, and sort of muscular, with a slight accent from his childhood in Guatemala, all of the girls thought that he was a dreamboat. I'm not going to lie when I say that I thought he was a dreamboat, too, but not the way that they saw him. They looked at him like a competitive kid looks at a Minor League Championship trophy--full of wonder and determination to get it, no matter what. Then once they won it, they would display it proudly until next year came, and then they would completely stop disregarding it in favor of the shinier, newer trophy on their mantle. It was disgusting to me.

With those parties came a lot of booze. And Sal had a taste for the strong stuff. He had always been much more adventurous than me. I would've never drunk anything like that when we were young like that.

But he would, and I knew that.

And he would always invite me to go with him as his plus one. He could've went with any pretty girl that he so desired, but he refused to. He would never go without asking me first. Of course, I was keeping up the facade of being straight, since there were consequences to telling some of the people in my school. It felt strange. Honestly, if I weren't keeping up that image for myself, I wouldn't have went to all of those parties with him.

But because I was still trying to uphold my reputation, I accepted his invitations every time.

I would watch him get drunk off his ass and talk to the girls, and play Truth or Dare or Spin the Bottle with them, and kiss them, and start making out with them, and come back from the places that they had just gotten done making out with each other in with his hair all ruffled and his face completely flushed, and talk about all of the girls that he had made out with that night, and tell me that he's way too drunk, and that I would need to be the designated driver. It was probably the saddest I had ever seen him in his entire life. I wanted to give him a giant hug, but I knew that if I did, I would never hear the end of it.

And one night, Sal was feeling particularly adventurous. We were in the car that we had came together it. We were both 16 at this point, but Sal was rapidly approaching 17. I had just gotten my license, so I was finally legally able to drive him whenever he got drunk.

As we began to get into the car, I put it in park and started driving. We were silent all the way to his house, and once we had parked, I had said my goodbyes. I was just waiting for Sal to get out and go home.

But he didn't. Instead, he sat there, in the passenger's side, staring at me, for the longest time. I felt a nervous sweat begin to drip down my forehead and my hands started to get sweaty, too. It wasn't like any other look he had ever given me. I was so afraid, but at the same time, I was oddly hopeful. I wondered if maybe this was my chance.

"R, you're a good friend," he slurred, with a drunken smirk on his face. I could tell that he was absolutely hammered.

"Uh, t-thanks," I stammered in response.

His smirk only got wider as he leaned more towards me. "Come closer," he said, motioning for me to move towards him. I listened, stupidly, leaning until our noses were practically touching each other, and his elbows were against mine on the glove box.

"You know... I've never kissed a guy before."

I couldn't believe that he had said that. "W-Well, uh... th-th-that's your problem, not mine, Sal."

"How's about... I MAKE it your problem, R?"

And that's when his lips pressed against mine. One hand reached for my cheek, the other landed on my shoulder. I was frozen solid in place, unable to really do so much as panic at what was happening. The guy I had had a crush on for 6 years now, kissing me? It was practically unheard of! If I'm being completely honest, I'm still not sure whether or not it actually happened or not.

But eventually, I let myself go, and I closed my eyes, and reciprocated.

It lasted until Sal needed to catch his breath. "Whoa, dude..." he said, his eyes wide with an emotion I couldn't quite make out. "That was fucking weird... But it... it wasn't bad, I guess...?"

I shook my head, reaching to touch my own lips. "N-No... it really wasn't bad at all. You're a... you're an okay kisser."

"You bet your sweet ass, I am, Wilson!" he replied, his voice suddenly much louder than it had been before. It was like he was celebrating the fact that we had just kissed each other. I started laughing, at first quietly to myself, but once Sal caught wind, we both started laughing harder than we had ever laughed before. It felt like nothing had just happened between the two of us. It felt like we had just made a joke that both of us thought was the best joke in the world. We were friends again, no longer whatever we had been as soon as our lips collided. The world felt much bigger with him in that car that night.

And he wanted to see all of it, I guess.

Without me.

Once we turned 18 and we had both graduated high school, Sal told me that he was going overseas. He didn't want to go to college just yet, but he swore that he would come back. He promised that he would.

"Look, I know that you wanted to go to college with me, but I don't feel like that would be a good choice for me right now. I just started sobering up, and college doesn't really seem like a good place for me to be while I'm still trying to go cold turkey. But I promise, as soon as I feel like I can come back, I will. You're my best friend, and none of what I'm going to do in Europe will ever change that."

It felt like I was getting broken up with, for some strange reason.

But I knew it was time. I knew it was time to tell him.

The kiss that we had exchanged in that car that night had been weighing heavily on my mind since it had happened. Even almost two years later. I couldn't stop replaying it. There was so much more than just Sal wanting to test it out behind that kiss, and I knew it. I wanted it to be more, but I was still worried that I had been blowing everything out of proportion. Either way, I knew that I needed to tell him the truth, so that things wouldn't be awkward with each other.

"Sal, before you go, I need to tell you something..." I began.

"What is it? That you've had a crush on me since we were 10?" he asked in response.

"How the hell did you figure that one out?" I was half-stunned and half-unsurprised. It was weird how well I knew Sal. I supposed that I had always known in the back of my mind that he knew, but I never wanted to acknowledge it, for obvious reasons.

He chuckled. "You're a very obvious person, R. I know when you're hiding something. I kind of figured it out on my own. Also, you talk in your sleep. And apparently, you dream of getting together with me?"

I felt my face getting warm. "Fuck," I whispered to myself. How stupid could I be?

"So it was that obvious, huh? So, uh... I'm kind of waiting for a response?"

He let out a sigh before looking at me. There was no verbal response, but there was a look in his eyes that reminded me of the look that he gave me in the car that night. I took in a breath sharply. He smirked, grabbing my hand. "Well, uh... I thought it was pretty obvious when I forced you to kiss me a couple years ago."

"Wait, that was genuine?"

"Yeah! Haven't you ever heard that alcohol doesn't impair the mind's ability to express itself, but it enhances it?"

"Uh, I guess, but I never really put two and two together..."

He put a hand to my face and leaned forward, until our foreheads were touching. "This makes leaving so much worse for me. You don't understand how bad I feel right now. I was planning on telling you all these different things, and telling you how I felt, and making this grand, amazing speech, but I might have accidentally forgotten half of it, so here goes all the improv I've learned...

"The way I see things, the world is big. The world is... very big. Too big for any one person to see in their entire lifetime. But I want to try my damnedest. And right now, being here with you, and looking in your eyes... the world doesn't seem as big anymore. I already feel like I've seen so much."

I felt tears welling up in my eyes. "Fuck," I whispered, as they began to spill over my eyelids and down my face. I loved him. I loved him so much. He was the only person that made me feel like I was never truly alone. It's so strange seeing someone and knowing that they made the world brighter whenever they were around, but that they're going to leave and everything is going to turn dark again.

"I know, R. This is hard for me, too."

"Just kiss me and get all the melodramatic shit done, please."

And he did.

Once. Twice. Three times. Four times. Suddenly, it felt like I was one of the girls that he would make out with at those parties when we were younger. But I felt like so much more.

I don't even want to recall it anymore. It hurts so much more thinking about it now.

The only thing that matters now is that he's gone. And Dr. Money's the one behind it.

So here's one last kiss for Sal.

I'll be with you, soon, alright?

-Randall Wilson

P.S.: Dr. Money, I know you're fucking reading this. You'd have to be. Fuck you. There are no healthy humans left now. You're out of ways to make money now. What are you going to do?


End file.
